Click to play videoBhopal: The currency notes, amounting to Rs 3.1 crore, recovered from the house of IAS couple Arvind and Tinu Joshi during an income tax raid in Bhopal on February 4 is only the left-over of an ill-gotten fortune that could not be converted to white money.
According to IT sources, the couple with the help of a few others had devised a smart strategy to convert black money into white with the help of insurance agents like Seema Jaiswal.
Seema, the ICICI prudential branch manager, helped them park the black money in various insurance policies.
IT authorities recovered Rs 14 lakh cash from her locker while on her own Seema surrendered Rs 60 lakh.
Director General, Income Tax, Brijesh Gupta said, “They either used to make a demand draft of less than Rs 50,000 or used to deposit the money in the account of someone else and then issue a cheque. Generally transaction were of less than Rs 50,000 because they do not require a PAN number and identity can be concealed.”
After the suspension of the IAS couple, the Lokayukta started a probe into the IT returns filed by the Joshis during the past five years. Complaints had been made earlier by former BJP MLA Narendra Birthre both in 2007 and 2009.
Birthre alleged that the then water resources minister Anup Mishra and his principal secretary Arvind Joshi were amassing huge amounts of money through various illegal means.
The two allegedly favoured one contractor S.K.Jain by awarding him contracts worth over Rs 2,000 crore in four years. Mishra who is now the health minister of Madhya Pradesh is former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's nephew. A complaint was also lodged against Mishra and Joshi with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan said, “There are some babus (officials) who spoil the image of bureaucracy but the fact is that they take bribes.”
Joshi was also reprimanded for incompetence by the Planning Commission of India. Madhya Pradesh's irrigation potential wasn't utilised when Joshi was in charge of irrigation.
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